CHANDIGARH, India The Italian-born widow of former Premier Rajiv Gandhi Sunday voiced regret over a 1984 Indian Army assault ordered by her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, on Sikhism's holiest shrine. Sonia Gandhi, 51, said she also regretted the anti-Sikh riots that left more than 5,000 dead across India following Indira Gandhi's assassination by two Sikh police guards the same year. Her speech at a Congress rally here kicked off the once-dominant party's campaign in the northern state of Punjab ahead of the February-March elections.

Such incidents should not have happened, she said, the June 6, 1984 military assault on the Golden Temple which left 600 Sikh separatists and soldiers dead and scarred the complex. There is no use recalling what we have collectively lost ... no words can balm that pain ... consolation from others always somehow seem hollow, she told a huge gathering of supporters in Chandigarh, capital of Sikh-majority Punjab. Recalling the Hindu backlash against Sikhs following Indira Gandhi's October 30, 1984 assassination, Sonia Gandhi said: No words can heal the wounds of the riot victims.

Her statement came a day after the Congress, which has roped her in to campaign ahead of the upcoming polls, apologized for the first time over the razing of an ancient mosque by Hindu fanatics in 1992. (AFP)